“The Life You Save Might Be My Wife’s”

Required reading: Michael at Herbivoracious has a detailed post here on how restaurants can and should deal with severe food allergies. His wife has a nut allergy, and, despite all their care, she’s wound up in the hospital several times over their years of dining out.

“When this happens, she is pumped full of intravenous epinephrine, benadryl, steroids, and other drugs. An epipen is great as an emergency measure, but we still have to go in for the full treatment. She spends the next few hours puking her guts out, scratching every inch of her skin, shivering and shaking. The next few days are a total loss as her body struggles to recover from the onslaught of poison and antidote.

Having worked in professional kitchens, I understand all too well how these accidents can happen. Restaurants are busy places with competing priorities and many people responsible for the food that ends up in front of the customer. But these excuses aren’t going to mean much if you kill someone.”

He’s divided the advice into sections for chefs/cooks, managers/owners, and the front of the house staff. Among his suggestions:

“Where possible, design your recipes so that common allergens are added at the last minute. That makes it much easier to accommodate guests that can’t have them. For example, you might have a butternut squash ravioli in brown butter; rather than adding hazelnuts to the saute, pre-toast them and simply sprinkle them on the final dish.

“Make sure that menu items specifically call out allergens in the description. Writing “Fettuccine with a basil-pine nut pesto” might save a life.

“When you drop the food, confirm for the customer: “and this is the one with no peanuts, I double-checked with the chef”. This isn’t required for safety, but you have no idea how much you’ll put the customer at ease.”

Not in the restaurant business? It’s worth checking out anyway in case you ever have dinner guests with severe allergies.